Scheme could allow relatives to visit care home residents

SOCIAL CARE

A PILOT scheme will be launched “shortly” which will see relatives of care home residents treated as key workers to enable safe visits, the Care Minister has said.

Helen Whately told the joint Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee she wants to enable visiting “but it must be safe”.

Campaigners have been calling for a designated relative to be given key worker status and regularly tested to make visits safer, amid concerns for isolated residents. Ms Whately did not provide any details, or give an indication of when the pilot would start, but said: “What I can say is that we are moving forward on it and we are going to pilot it.”

She added: “Visiting is incredibly important for residents and their families in care homes, I really want us to enable visiting but it must be safe.”

Vic Rayner, executive director at the National Care Forum, said: “The Government must act quickly to move us to a place where this pilot comes into play, and we move to a situation across the country where the default assumption is that meaningful and regular visiting is a clear part of every resident’s care.

“For many, the decisions that are taken about visiting are lifechanging, and potentially lifelimiting. None of this is easy, but nothing that mattered ever was.”

The Alzheimer’s Society said it was “delighted” to hear of the pilot but that “we need the ‘ when’ and the ‘ where’, plus plans for national rollout”. Chief executive Kate Lee said: “Keeping coronavirus out of care homes has to remain an absolute priority, so these key family carers must get the regular testing and personal protective equipment ( PPE) they need to visit safely.”

The Care Minister was questioned during the first joint inquiry hearing into the impact of coronavirus on the social care sector, and lessons learned.